


When you can take me by the hands

by tomato_greens



Series: Listen, Listen - music ficlets [14]
Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Eden - Freeform, F/M, Gen, Genesis - Freeform, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-25
Updated: 2012-05-25
Packaged: 2017-11-05 23:28:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/412209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tomato_greens/pseuds/tomato_greens
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eve finds him there soon after. “Please,” she says again, disrupting the quiet. She says it desperately, like it’s the only thing she knows how to say. Perhaps it is, Crawly thinks; Adam certainly doesn’t know the word. “Please.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	When you can take me by the hands

**Author's Note:**

> Written to [Fucking Boyfriend](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RXqmYNHrF8) by the Bird and the Bee.

Eve, the first time she runs, is striking––lithe, too-thin, with hair the color of earth that flames out behind her. The terrified angle of her neck as she looks over her shoulder is lovely.

Crowley (who is still _Crawly_ , then, who discovered pride too late for it to save him, whose heritage and legacy will always be the worshipful tangle of abasement and wonder) sees her, and lifts his head to strike. 

"Oh," she says, more a gasp than a word, and holds out a wrist. "Please."

Crawly hesitates, uncertain. 

"Please," she says, needful, her eyes wide in fear. "Please."

But he can't, despite her wrist waiting in front of him, blue-veined and enticing. Her expression makes even this small mischief seem too much like a mercy, and mercy, Crawly is quite sure, is not what he provides.

"Eve?" calls Adam. Then, when he finds her crouched over him so, "Dirty creature!"

Crawly can't be sure which one of them he's talking about.

The days pass. Crawly experiments. He flickers unexpectedly into a human form one day, then promptly retreats––too much, too soon, and what do you need all those legs for, anyway? He carefully doesn't think about the searing emptiness where his wings used to be, the way he can't counterbalance without them, and slithers to rest in an ancient, silent grove. 

Eve finds him there soon after. “Please,” she says again, disrupting the quiet. She says it desperately, like it’s the only thing she knows how to say. Perhaps it is, Crawly thinks. Adam certainly doesn’t know the word. “Please.”

Crawly still can’t bring himself to bite her, but she looks so––abjectly, terrifyingly, vacantly hungry, as though she’s a cup waiting to be filled. He winds his way up to a higher tree branch and her gaze follows him, then continues: the red Fruit, ripe and heavy for the picking. “Oh,” she says, and climbs.

Adam finds her soon after, her fingers and mouth colored with her betrayal. “How could you?” he cries, falling to his knees in front of her.

“Oh, please,” Eve says, and her laugh, bitter, complex, rings through the memory of Eden like an everlasting stain.

(He sees her again, once, outside the bookshop, long after he's rediscovered his wings, one frosty October evening just after the Apocalypse doesn’t happen. She’s wrapped up in a dark high-necked coat, her belly hugely pregnant and her hair covered by a scarf, but there’s no mistaking her.

She nods at him, her eyes aglitter, as he coaxes open the locked door of the shop. “Thanksss,” she says, one eyebrow raised, her voice just the same, and disappears into the night.

“You could actually use the key I gave you, you know, the door always protests when you fake it,” Aziraphale says, appearing from the back room with a cup of tea in hand.

“Angel, please,” says Crowley, reaching for him, unaccountably cold.

“Oh, dear boy,” says Aziraphale, soft, and gathers him close, kissing his fears quiet.)


End file.
